The original circumcision register booklet, , bound in brown leather and provided with two little copper claps, presumably dates from 1737 and was bought in an antiques shop in Amsterdam by the municipal archives of The Hague. It was a special present for Menachem ben Sjemarja Zalman because he had passed succesfully the exam for mohel. From the statements he sometimes added to the standard blessing we learn that he was born in 1716 and that he was twenty-one years old when he performed his first "brit mila". Menachem worked with some intervals as a mohel for fifty-five years, the circumsicion register covers the period from 1737 till 1792.